Faster horses wrote:Sadly, I don't know what has happened to his herd. He certainly was wise. I worked for ag publications and talked to many bullproducers for a number of years. Larry's name was spoken with reverence by almost all of them. He was highly respected in the industry.

Highly respected, and yet very few practice what he spoke of. In fact, it seems most do the opposite - propagate the outliers, outcross continually, breed for change rather than consistency.

I have to agree with your post. But he did what he believed in and to heck with what others thought. He had some greatstories to tell and he really knew his cattle. It wasn't random selection, he totally knew Angus genetics. Echo was the foundationof his herd when he switched from the performance bandwagon. How many producers would have the guts to do that? He did, andit worked. If I had realized the wealth of knowledge he possessed I would have taken a tape recorder. His cattle weren't small, as we thought they might be--they were moderate and I believe, after using his bulls, they were moderate in every trait.

Several of us that bought bulls from him over the years, just told him to pick them and after a couple of times, we never madethe trip there again. I remember when we were visiting when we first met, he remarked, "I'm just a dirty little beet farmer."

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

Larry, in my opinion was one of the best, if not the best cattle breeder. I consider myself blessed to have known him and to have a lot of Shoshone genetics in my cows. Either from bulls of Larrys or from a few other great breeders that have carried on Shoshone genetics and Larry’s philosophies. The question of the heritability of phenotype was asked and the best way to accomplish that in a herd is to linebreed them. I’ll always remember Larry asking me if I kept my own replacement heifers, I told him I did. He asked if I ever kept any of my own bull calves to use, I told him that I didn’t. He then kind of chastised me and said so you have confidence in the females to use for years but not the bulls? He made you think. Shoshone cattle are a pleasure to have and be around. And a little side note they are some of the best PAP testing angus that I’ve been around. Haven’t had a high one yet. Well I better go iodine a navel, my last heifer just calved as I type this here at the calving barn.

I have gotten catalogs from breeders consigning 20 bulls to a sale with 19 different AI sires. Difficult to buy consistency from those guys. I prefer to buy from those who put their own genetics back into their herd. Properly done line breeding has far more merit to commercial cattle operations than otherwise. BW, WW and current weight and phenotype are all that is needed when choosing. The rest just creates more confusion.

Don't tell people your problems, half of em' don't care and the other half are glad you got em' We can all run the neighbors better'n our own

Mike wrote:Keep in mind that EPD's are a tool to use for selection of traits that we cannot see. (Phenotypics) Except for maybe Frame Score. So many traits are antagonistic that it is often called EPD overload.

My brother clipped bulls for a long time Hereford breeder a long time ago when EPD's were just starting to become accepted. One time the Hereford breeder was asked if his cattle had EPD's. He replied "Naw, we vaccinated for them years ago". In our herd we don't even look at EPD's when selecting herdsires. IMO there is a lot of information that is far more useful than EPD's.

"I've never been rich enough to be able to afford poor bulls" - Northern Rancher

Of course phenotypic traits are important. Yes, good feet and legs are mighty important. But you can have improvement in other traits at the same time if you know how.

Remember, EPD's are for the comparison of two animals only........Say maybe 2 bulls you are thinking of buying. Then if they are both correct phenotypically, go for the best (but not necessarily highest) EPD in a trait you need in your herd.

I would suggest using both phenotype and genomics/epds. If the bull is phenotypically correct then look to see if the epd's fit your management/resources. You must ask your self what is optimum level for each trait for my operation and select for that. The balance approach with adjustments in traits is best.